


The Boys of Summer

by ignipes



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-20
Updated: 2006-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 05:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, in forgettable nowhere towns between one job and the next, Dean takes off for a few hours without telling Sam where he's going.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boys of Summer

Aching and bone-tired, they check into a motel at dawn. Sam takes three steps into the room, collapses face-down on one of the beds, and falls asleep immediately.

The sound of the shower running wakes him a few hours later. He squints at the time on his phone: just after noon. He closes his eyes again.

It's the door opening and the blinding sunlight on his face that wakes him the second time. He throws his arm over his eyes and groans in protest.

"Be back later," is all Dean says.

The sun winks out, the door clicks shut, and the room is silent. Sam tries, but he can't sleep again after that. So he gives up and stumbles into the shower, catalogs his bumps and bruises, lets the water run cool and steady over his face, wonders where Dean has gone.

It's not that he doesn't expect it. Weeks on the road together turned into months, months became years, and it didn't take them long to figure out that they'd both be headed for a mental hospital or a fratricide conviction if they didn't spend a few hours apart every now and then. Sam goes to movies, hangs out in bookstore cafes, takes long walks and pretends he's not that creepy guy staring through people's living room windows and wondering about their lives.

He has no idea what Dean does or where he goes. And on a day like this -- after a rotten night, a shitty hunt, technically successful but with far too many innocent casualties before they stopped the fucking monster -- he's not sure he wants to know.

July in North Carolina, but they're in the hills and it's not as hot as it could be, so after he's clean and dressed and somewhat presentable Sam decides to go find something to eat. The town isn't much, just a postage stamp of streets tucked in a narrow valley, cloudless sky overhead and green trees lining the blocks. Thinking about pancakes, he heads toward the center of town; places like this, there's always a restaurant that serves breakfast all day long.

He finds his pancakes, as well as coffee and bacon and a flirty waitress named Candy, at the Blue Ridge Diner on First Street. Sam takes his time eating, sipping his coffee and not thinking about much. It's Saturday and the tourists are out in droves, but Candy seems happy enough to keep refilling his mug as long as he wants to sit and eavesdrop on the people chattering all around.

When he feels the caffeine buzzing through his veins and notices the manager glaring at him across the room, he gives Candy a big tip -- Dean had a lucky streak at pool last week, faced an entire family of good ol' boy Georgia rednecks, grinned when they gave him a crooked cue and sent every last uncle, brother, and cousin slinking away with their tails between their legs -- and steps into the sunlight again. It's too bright, too much weekend and too much summer to head back to the anonymous motel room, so Sam walks the town aimlessly, peering through store windows at things nobody needs to buy, counting out-of-state license plates and watching kids drip ice cream on the sidewalk.

Out toward the edge of town he notices a bunch of cars in the high school parking lot. Cheers and shouts float across the afternoon air, and he lets his curiosity lead him around to the baseball field at the back of the school. A high school camp, he guesses, because the players look too old for Little League.

There's not much of a crowd -- moms and dads with coolers and blankets in the shade of the trees behind the chain-link backstop, little kids greased up with sunscreen and wide-eyed beneath too-big hats -- but the players don't seem to notice. One team is wearing green, the other is wearing blue, and they're all splattered with mud kicked up from last night's rain. The scoreboard reads 3-2 but Sam can't tell which team is which. After a few moments, he decides it doesn't much matter, and he wanders closer to watch for a while.

Then he sees a familiar figure, and he stops abruptly.

Dean is leaning against one of the trees behind the blue team's bench, his hands tucked into his pockets and his face half-hidden in the patchy shade.

Sam takes a few steps toward him, opens his mouth to call out -- then stops again.

Used to be, when they were kids, it seemed like Dean would never shut up all summer long, opening day to game seven of the series. Used to be, Sam thinks, and his breath is suddenly, strangely short. Sometimes Dean would pester Dad enough that he would give in and get them tickets to games, and Sam would always grumble and pretend he hated to go along. He remembers playing catch in the cool evenings, in the peace and quiet of the park near their apartment, with Dean lecturing him about the finer points of curve ball technique and sounding so much like Dad lecturing about hunting that Sam never knew whether to roll his eyes or laugh out loud. He remembers the spring season Dean played on the high school team, remembers hating that he had to do his homework in the bleachers while the team practiced because he wasn't allowed to walk home alone, remembers the too-casual, offhand way Dean told Dad he'd been kicked off the team, and the way Dad had looked at him for a long, steady minute and said, _You can use the free time for target practice._

But he can't remember the last time he heard Dean say anything about baseball. He tries to recall the last time they argued about teams, or bet a six-pack of beer on a game, or turned to the sports section in a local paper before turning to the obituaries.

It's been a while, Sam thinks. The season was half through and he hadn't even noticed.

There's a solid crack, and he turns to see one of the kids on the blue team send the ball soaring into left field, nowhere near the poor green outfielder scrambling for a catch. The blue team springs off the bench cheering, and the moms and dads just get louder as the hitter heads toward second.

Sam looks back at Dean. Dean hasn't moved, of course, hasn't even pushed away from the tree, but he is smiling as he watches the lucky kid round the bases.

Something tightens in Sam's chest, and he steps back quickly, awkwardly.

It's stupid, he tells himself. It's not like he's spying or following Dean or anything; he was just out for a walk, just happened to end up in the same place.

But he turns away as the kid sprints toward home and the cheers grow louder, away from the boasting dads and picture-taking moms, grass-stained knees and caps knocked askew.

He leaves the game behind and walks back through town, stops by the library book sale for a while, picks up some things at the pharmacy for their first aid kit, swings the plastic bag idly from one hand as he heads back to the motel.

Before he goes into the room, he stops by the office. The woman behind the desk peels her gaze away from the soaps on the TV long enough to raise her eyebrows in question.

"Checking out already?"

He gives her a bright smile, watches her expression soften a bit. "No, ma'am, not until tomorrow. I just have a question -- is there a place in town that sells used sporting equipment? Balls, bats, gloves, that sort of thing?"

Frowning thoughtfully, she shakes her head. "No, not really. Sometimes they get stuff like that at the Salvation Army, but none of the stores."

Sam shrugs and thanks her. "Well, it was worth a shot."

He walks back along the line of rooms, pats the hood of the car as he passes, slips the key into the lock and lets himself in. Just a few hours in the place and they're already made it a mess, and he doesn't even want to think about how much of a bitch it'll be to get that creature's slimy blood out of his favorite jeans.

Next place they stop, he thinks, maybe there will be something; shouldn't be too hard to find. He gathers up the laundry and begins hunting for quarters, wonders if he even remembers how to throw a curve ball anymore.

Next town they're in, he'll ask again.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Boys of Summer (Hot Corner Rag)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4205883) by [victoria_p (musesfool)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p)




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